Three Rules for Successful Software Development

In my years of software development I have been looking for that "holy grail" of software development methodology. There are many methodologies, Six Sigma, Agile, Extreme programming to mention a few. However these methodologies have concrete rules to be followed, and they seem to restrict the element of creativity in the process of development.

If you look at the successful software developed in recent years, especially the open source ones, none of them have been developed using the above methodologies. On the other hand they have evolved to what they are today over the years. It is in this context that I would like to set three rules for successful software development. Look at your software as an evolving organism.

1) Only software that can be partially usefull, when implemented partially, can succeed. You need your software to evolve into what your ultimate goal is. Start with a small release that you think will make it usefull for a small group of people or solves a small set of problems. Based on feedback let it evolve into the next stage, and so on until you have what you need.

2) Your software is never in sync with its current requirements. Because of the very nature of the evolutionary process, your software has adapted to the previous requirements, and is currently being adapted to the present requirements.

3) Finally Orgel's Rule, named after the evolutionary biologist Leslie Orgel. "Evolution is smarter than you are". Let your current users point out what is missing. Let them set your agenda. No one person or group of developers or analysts can point out what is missing better than your current users.

This blog was inspired by an excellant article called "In praise of evolvable systems" by Clay Shirkey.